Your MotM v Benfica

[Frankie 8,151]

A very strange game last night where we played so well for around an hour but were poor for the first and last 15mins or so.

 

However, still some very good performances within that.  Goldson was again superb (though perhaps jointly culpable at the third goal) whilst Jack, Kamara and Morelos were all in fine form.

 

Has to be Steven Davis for me though: he really was top drawer and ran the show.

[rbr 1,247]

Was a toss up between a few players , Davis s passing and general play was immense , but only because of his goal , Glen Kamara just shades it for me , outstanding performance .

 

As an aside , January is going to be huge for us , we need to keep this team together .

[onevision 1,447]

Morelos and Davis did well but Kamara was class throughout the 90mins.

[DMAA 3,603]

Feels better this morning than it did last night. 

 

I've given it to Morelos because I have never been shy of criticising his overall play a bit but last night he showed what he can be like at his best. He was outstanding. After he was linked with Porto, I genuinely have to wonder if he raised his performance knowing there would be potential suitors watching him because we haven't seen a performance like that from him in so long. 

 

I thought we had big performances throughout the team though. Tavernier and Barisic a constant threat. Jack had a dodgy start, and Davis has to take a chunk of the blame for not being goal side of his man for the third goal, there should never have been a through ball in the first place, but aside from that all three were excellent.

 

Aribo was good was he one but he did tire. Kent's pace was very useful for us because it got us in behind repeatedly and he worked hard as always, but again he isn't doing enough on the ball and he missed a great chance that would have buried the game, he needs to score those.

 

I am Helander's biggest fan and he definitely takes his share of the blame for each of the the goals last night but I will offer a bit of a defence of him because I don't think it's fair at all to blame him solely. The first was the worst by far, two poor mistakes, but Benfica needed a lot of luck after that in that it just hit off Goldson to go in. But they shouldn’t have had the opportunity to get to our byline.

The second one, he is caught ball watching really when he should have been more aware of the inevitable run Nunez behind him would make, who he surely knew is faster than him, he almost does very well to intercept it but it slips away from him. But I'm going to spread the blame a bit, Waldschmidt received the ball in way too much space before that pass, it is 5/6 against 3 and we managed to leave their big dangerman in terms of creating goals wide open. He plays an eye of the needle pass (he will do this again later in the game), and despite Helander actually doing well to recover and slow Nunez down and force him to the byline, nobody picks up the one man in the box who is the only way Benfica are going to score. If you watch the replay they were ball watching and jogging and didn't notice the Benfica player until the last second.

For the third goal, for some reason all the blame has been put on Helander despite the fact this is the one goal he wasn't primarily at fault for. The move starts in their defence with our whole team in position, so there are no excuses from the midfield this time. And the midfield, Davis in particular, lets Waldschmidt, yes the same player who has sliced us open once already since being subbed on, slips by him totally untracked, allowing him to receive the ball in 'in the hole', behind our midfield, in loads of space, and allowing him to play another brilliant eye of the needle pass to Nunez who has positioned himself in between Goldson and Helander, who weren't even badly positioned. The pass and run were just so good there was very little they could do about it. For me, the way to prevent that is for Davis to track the man, and for the whole team to sit far deeper so that these spaces behind both our midfield and defence don't exist, we got the tactics wrong in the last 10 minutes when we should have just been tightening up and just wasting time.

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by DMAA

[the gunslinger 3,366]

I though Tav was quality. Morelos, Kamara, Jack Davis and Goldson also excellent. 

 

 

[rbr 1,247]

Just shows how well we played when we have very good reasons given by other fellow posters to their choices , and to be honest they are all correct , think we just have to enjoy this team whilst we have them here .

 

I will say this yet again , our midfield cost £50,000 , or put another way 8 days of Shane Duffy’s wages .

[compo 6,141]

Kamara buy a short head in front of Davis .

[onevision 1,447]

2 hours ago, DMAA said:

 Nunez who has positioned himself in between Goldson and Helander, who weren't even badly positioned. 

 

Sorry DMAA, watch again, IMO Goldson should have been across tighter to Helander as any threat was coming down our centre / left side. 

[T-1000 174]

There were a number of good performances.  Whilst I agree that Kamara had a good game I thought the beginning of the game they were more threatening down our left hand side because he was not following Benfica's runners thus leaving Barisic exposed.  I thought some of the layoff and hold up play of Morelos was very good, probably his best game for a while but overall, I felt, Davis just shaded being MOTM. 

[BlackSocksRedTops 3,480]

Not MOTM but I thought Jack had his best game in ages last night. He was more dynamic than usual